An Orkney Maid by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (classic book list TXT) 📖

the place Rahal had selected as the safest for their keeping. It was a large closet in the spare room and she went there with them. As she returned to her own room she heard her mother welcoming a favourite visitor and it pleased her. "Now I need not hurry," she thought. "Mistress Vorn will stay an hour at least, and I can take my own time."

"Taking her own time" evidently meant to Thora the reading of Ian's letter over again. And also a little musing on what Ian had said. There was, however, no hurry about Jean Hay's letter and it was so pleasant to drift among the happy thoughts that crowded into her consideration. So for half an hour Jean's letter lay at her side untouched--Jean was so far outside her dreams and hopes that afternoon--but at length she lifted it and these were the words she read:

DEAR MISS THORA:

I was hearing since last spring that thou wert going to be married
on the son of the Rev. Dr. Macrae--on the young man called John
Calvin Macrae. Very often I was hearing this, and always I was
answering, "There will be no word of truth in that story. Miss
Ragnor will not be noticing such a young man as that. No,
indeed!"

Here Thora threw down the letter and sat looking at it upon the floor as if she would any moment tear it to pieces. But she did not, she finally lifted it and forced herself to continue reading:

I was hating to tell thee some things I knew, and I was often
writing and then tearing up my letter, for it made me sick to be
thy true friend in such a cruel way. But often I have heard the
wise tell "when the knife is needed, the salve pot will be of no
use." Now then, this day, I tell myself with a sad heart, "Jean,
thou must take the knife. The full time has come."

"Why won't the woman tell what she has got to tell," said Thora in a voice of impatient anguish, and in a few minutes she whispered, "I am cold." Then she threw a knitted cape over her shoulders and lifted the letter again, oh, so reluctantly, and read:

The young man will have told your father, that he is McLeod's
agent and a sort of steward of his large properties. This does
not sound like anything wrong, but often I have been told
different. Old McLeod left to his son many houses. Three of them
are not good houses, they are really fashionable gambling houses.
Macrae has the management of them as well as of many others in
various parts of the city. Of these others I have heard no wrong.
I suppose they may be quite respectable.

This story has more to it. Whenever there is a great horse race
there Macrae will be, and I saw myself in the daily newspapers
that his name was among the winners on the horse Sergius. It was
only a small sum he won, but sin is not counted in pounds and
shillings. No, indeed! So there is no wonder his good father is
feeling the shame of it.

Moreover, though he calls himself Ian, that is not his name. His
name is John Calvin and his denial of his baptismal name, given to
him at the Sabbath service, in the house of God, at the very altar
of the same, is thought by some to be a denial of God's grace and
mercy. And he has been reasoned with on this matter by the ruling
elder in his father's kirk, but no reason would he listen to, and
saying many things about Calvin I do not care to write.

Many stories go about young men and young women, and there is this
and that said about Macrae. I have myself met him on Prince's
Street in the afternoon very often, parading there with various
gayly dressed women. I do not blame him much for that. The
Edinburgh girls are very forward, not like the Norse girls, who
are modest and retiring in their ways. I am forced to say that
Macrae is a very gay young man, and of course you know all that
means without more words about it. He dresses in the highest
fashion, goes constantly to theatres with some lady or other, and
I do not wonder that people ask, "Where does he get the money?
Does he gamble for it?" For he does not go to any kirk on the
Sabbath unless he is paid to go there and sing, which he does very
well, people say. In his own rooms he is often heard playing the
piano and singing music that is not sacred or fit for the holy
day. And his father is the most religious man in Edinburgh. It is
just awful! I fear you will never forgive me, Miss Thora, but I
have still more and worse to tell you, because it is, as I may
say, personally heard and not this or that body's clash-ma-claver.
Nor did I seek the same, it came to me through my daily work and
in a way special and unlooked-for, so that after hearing it, my
conscience would no longer be satisfied and I was forced, as it
were, to the writing of this letter to you.

I dare say Macrae may have spoken to you anent his friendship with
Agnes and Willie Henderson, indeed Willie Henderson and John
Macrae have been finger and thumb ever since they played together.
Now Willie's father is an elder in Dr. Macrae's kirk and if all
you hear anent him be true--which I cannot vouch for--he is a man
well regarded both in kirk and market place--that is, he was so
regarded until he married again about two years ago. For who,
think you, should he marry but a proud upsetting Englishwoman, who
was bound to be master and mistress both o'er the hale household?

Then Miss Henderson showed fight and her brother Willie stood by
her. And Miss Henderson is a spunky girl and thought bonnie by
some people, and has a tongue so well furnished with words to
defend what she thinks her rights, that it leaves nobody uncertain
as to what thae rights may be. Weel, there has been nothing but
quarreling in the elder's house ever since the unlucky wedding;
and in the first year of the trial Willie Henderson borrowed
money--I suppose of John Macrae--and took himself off to America,
and some said the elder was glad of it and others said he was sair
down-hearted and disappointed.

After that, Miss Agnes was never friends with her stepmother. It
seems the woman wanted her to marry a nephew of her ain kith and
kin, and in this matter her father was of the same mind. The old
man doubtless wanted a sough of peace in his own home. That was
how things stood a couple of weeks syne, but yestreen I heard what
may make the change wanted. This is how it happened.

Yesterday afternoon Mrs. Baird came to Madame David's to have a
black velvet gown fitted. Madame called on Jean Hay to attend her
in the fitting and to hang the long skirt properly--for it is a
difficult job to hang a velvet skirt, and Jean Hay is thought to
be very expert anent the set and swing of silk velvet, which has a
certain contrariness of its own. Let that pass. I was kneeling on
the floor, setting the train, when Mrs. Baird said: "I suppose you
have heard, Madame, the last escapade of that wild son of the
great Dr. Macrae?" Then I was all ears, the more so when I heard
Madam say: "I heard a whisper of something, but I was not heeding
it. Folks never seem to weary of finding fault with the handsome
lad."

"Well, Madame," said Mrs. Baird, "I happen to know about this
story. Seeing with your own eyes is believing, surely!"

"What did you see?" Madame asked.

"I saw enough to satisfy me. You know my house is opposite to the
West End Hotel, and last Friday I saw Macrae go there and he was
dressed up to the nines. He went in and I felt sure he had gone to
call on some lady staying there. So I watched, and better watched,
for he did not come out for two hours, and I concluded they had
lunched together! For when Macrae came out of the hotel, he spoke
to a cabman, and then waited until a young lady and her maid
appeared. He put the young lady into the cab, had a few minutes'
earnest conversation with her, then the maid joined her mistress
and they two drove away."

"Well, now, Mrs. Baird," said Madame, "there was nothing in that
but just a courteous luncheon together."

"Wait, Madame! I felt there was more, so I took a book and sat
down by my window. And just on the edge of the dark I saw the two
women return, and a little later a waiter put lights in an upper
parlour and he spread a table for dinner there and Macrae and the
young lady ate it together. Afterwards they went away in a cab
together." Then Madame asked if the maid was with them, and Mrs.
Baird said she thought she was but had not paid particular
attention.

Madame said something to me about the length of the train and then
Mrs. Baird seemed annoyed at her inattention, and she added:
"Macrae was advertised to sing in the City Hall the next night at
a mass meeting of citizens about abrogating slavery in the United
States, and he was not there--broke his engagement! What do you
think of that? The next night, Sabbath, he did the same to Dr.
Fraser's kirk, where he had promised to sing a pro-Christmas
canticle. And this morning I heard that he is going to the Orkneys
to marry a rich and beautiful girl who lives there. Now what do
you think of your handsome Macrae? I can tell you he is on every
one's tongue." And Madame said, "I have no doubt of it and I'll
warrant nobody knows what they are talking